Page 1 of 62
1
2
3
11
51
... LastLast
  1. #1
    Zookeeper Sunfyre's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    1,882

    [Balance] Sunfyre's "Fix my Balance DPS!" thread.

    This is totally a blatant rip off of Mihir's Feral DPS thread, but we've had a lot of requests lately to help with balance druid's gear, rotations, etc. I am by no means the best balance druid out there, and I encourage others to comment/reply/critique as well.

    That being said, let's hear your problems!

    -- the following is edited by Slippykins....

    Please Read Before Posting!

    Common Issues Most Moonkins Face

    ~ Low cycling times
    • This is a prevalent issue a lot of new (and old!) moonkins face, which has a very negative spiralling effect on our DPS. When we are affected by heavy movement or we spend too much time casting utility spells or other spells not helping us get through our eclipses, it leads to a lot lower DPS than you could really do. The first side-effect will be low Nature's Grace uptime, as you spend more and more time between eclipses. Directly from that comes low DoT uptimes, as we typically only want to refresh each DoT once per eclipse. So not only do we take a lot more time to do the same amount of damage, but we also end up with DoTs that could be not buffed by NG and hard casts that are significantly slower.
    • The fix: concentrate on standing still for as long as you can. Movement is a humongous hamper to our DPS, and should be avoided if at all possible. Know the fights and when you can stand still for long periods of time - there might be spots that aren't targetted by ranged spells, or you can pre-stack on stacking points. Minimising movement is key to fast cycle times, but making sure you're always using Starfire/Wrath/Starsurge is also of importance. Even if you're cancelling hard casts for SS procs (which should be done at medium crit levels), just make sure you're always casting something.
    • Please note that cycle lengths and NG uptime will vary depending on fight - typically for single-target you should see around 90%+ uptime on NG and ~33 second average cycle lengths. Multi-target will show lower NG uptime and longer cycle lengths, so just ask if you need some clarification!

    ~ When do I switch to a 10289 haste breakpoint build?
    • A very common question for 5.2 and 5.3. Essentially you don't want to swap out crit for haste and only be left with something like 2k crit - you'd have almost 0% SS proc waste and a very RNG-based rotation (crit% is low, and 30% chance on that for SS procs). If you can get to the 10289 haste breakpoint without going below 5k crit rating then it's definitely advantageous - 5k crit rating is around the lowest crit you'd want. WrathCalcs and SimCraft both agree that haste is better per point than crit up to 10289, so it's safe to say it'll be a DPS increase. If you'd like more information on haste vs. crit, have a look at this post: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post21140318.

    Things You Should Check FIRST!

    ~ Finding SS proc waste:
    • Select the fight you'd like to look at.
    • Go into the Expression Editor.
    • Copy and paste this in:

      Code:
      fullType = SPELL_AURA_REFRESH
      AND spell = "Shooting Stars"
      AND sourceName = "name_goes_here"
      This will find your total SS overwrites.

    • Go into the Players -> Druid -> name -> Buffs Gained tab
    • Find the total amount of SS procs you got for the fight.
    • SS proc waste will be (SS proc overwrites)/(total SS procs)*100, as a percentage.


    ~ Finding DoT and Nature's Grace uptimes:
    • Go into the Players -> Druid -> name -> Buffs Gained tab
    • In the left-hand column will be your Nature's Grace spell, as well as its uptime for the whole fight.
    • Tab across to the Buffs Cast tab.
    • In the middle column will be your DoT spells and their uptime.
    Last edited by Slippykins; 2013-05-31 at 01:25 AM. Reason: Added in common issues/fixes
    Sunfyre | @FoGSunfyre

  2. #2
    Ok, I want to give this a shot I've posted this on EJ, but apart from "Use balance power tracker" (which I'm gonna check out for sure) I didn't get any help. Any advice still appreciated! My armory can be found here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/characte...ctity/advanced

    I'm usually Resto, but for Rag hero I've switched to moonkin, and I'd like to get some feedback on the tries. Here's the log:

    World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

    Of course, we're whiping, so there's probably a plethora of things going wrong (and of course I take every hint I can get, even if not moonkin-specific). My gear should be ok due to using a lot of items from my main spec, but is void of any set boni.

    Specifically for this fight, I've made the following decision (up for debate, of course): I'll want to be in solar eclipse for the seeds, and by trial and error I've found that it's not quite possible for me when I refresh dots at the beginning and at the end of every eclipse. So I do only refresh dots when they run out, and I comfortably reach solar eclipse during the first transition phase. I stay in solar till after the seed phase. Since we stop boss damage around the 3rd seed spawn to wait for world in flames, this seems to make a lot of sense for me (since the alternative would lessen aoe damage and push boss damage). For the seeds, I preplant mushrooms and push starfall, upon spawn I explode the mushrooms, put up hurricane (for 1 or 2 ticks), when I run out I use typhoon and use either sunfire or wrath to finish up individual seeds. Is there a better way?

    I don't use starfall in the transition phases due to using it for the seeds. If the seeds work better, I'd want to skip that and use it in transitions, because I image it's hugely valuable there.

    My gripe is that I think I should be doing more damage, especially since there's quite some aoe involved, but I can't see what I'm doing wrong. I try to run as little as possible during world in flames and such, but often I just need to move some more (e.g. in p1 when there's a trap nearby). In particular, I often can't finish a cast during world in flames, even if I take only a small step (wrath works, but starfire usually does not). I'd really be grateful for any hint how I could push damage. I'm really willing to micromanage every aspect for this fight, I guess progress will still take some time

    One particular trouble is the travel time of wrath/starsurge, I'd often cast one or two more wraths then I need to when going lunar. I'm trying to get a grip on it by remembering the number of casts needed, but euphoria makes that kinda unreliable. How does anyone else handle this?

  3. #3
    Zookeeper Sunfyre's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    1,882
    I have a hard time understanding your WoL/Armory because they're in German, but it looks like your reforging/gemming/etc looks right.

    As for DoT applications -- you only really need to put them up at the beginning of an Eclipse. I'm not sure where this whole "beginning and end" thing came from. Obviously, if you're in Solar cleave, just continue to put them up as they fall.

    Not having the 4T12 is obviously going to hurt because it extends your non-Eclipse time, and makes it take longer to get from Eclipse to Eclipse. All Moonkin struggle with the travel time on Rag thing, you're not unique there. If you can, during seed phase, try to still make a full Eclipse transition from Solar, to Lunar, to Solar when you're in-between seeds. If you find you can't, then stay in Solar cleave. (Again, might be a bit hard since you don't have 4T12).

    Your strategy looks decent. I'm not sure if you're getting all the caster buffs you could, which could explain why your DPS is a bit lackluster, but still I think you're off to the right start.
    Sunfyre | @FoGSunfyre

  4. #4
    Bahh darn for the language stuff, sorry. If I have trouble in the future I'll try to bring an english log.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sunfyre View Post
    As for DoT applications -- you only really need to put them up at the beginning of an Eclipse. I'm not sure where this whole "beginning and end" thing came from. Obviously, if you're in Solar cleave, just continue to put them up as they fall.
    The thread at EJ is very long and I'm not sure where else I could have gotten that info, but I can't really find it know. So let me just ask to clarify, I put them up at the beginning, and then refresh them when needed (this will be before the next eclipse), and then refresh them when I reach the next eclipse? It would seem logical to me that if I have to put them up twice during 200 Energy, I'll do both during an eclipse rather than 1 refresh during eclipse and the other in non-eclipsed state. As I explained, I altered it for the sake of reaching solar in time, but I guess I'll play some more with proper refreshing and better cast usage.

    Not having the 4T12 is obviously going to hurt because it extends your non-Eclipse time, and makes it take longer to get from Eclipse to Eclipse. All Moonkin struggle with the travel time on Rag thing, you're not unique there. If you can, during seed phase, try to still make a full Eclipse transition from Solar, to Lunar, to Solar when you're in-between seeds. If you find you can't, then stay in Solar cleave. (Again, might be a bit hard since you don't have 4T12).
    I don't see the full transition happening for me. Assuming I start at the border of solar when I start nuking the seeds, I'll still need 8 Wraths and 10 Starfires to reach solar again, which translates for 37.8 seconds of hardcasting for me. Adding in refreshing dots at least 3 times and then having world in flames inbetween... Yeah 4t12 might help, I could get it by sacrificing some Itemlevel, I'll try that (although it means losing haste, too... darn!).

    But, what's the procedure for the whole thing? My raid meets in 1 place, then runs together from the seeds to another place, starts nuking when they spawn... pretty common thing, I guess. I think we can improve by having the meeting points in a proper place for world in flames, but other than that, I can't think of any improvement that lets me get out more hardcasts. Is speccing into lunar shower a good idea?

    Your strategy looks decent. I'm not sure if you're getting all the caster buffs you could, which could explain why your DPS is a bit lackluster, but still I think you're off to the right start.
    I'm pretty sure I don't get all the buffs I could, it's 10 man alright, but I think I have most (missing 3% overall damage, I think, everything else should be there iirc). Thanks for your help

  5. #5
    Zookeeper Sunfyre's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    1,882
    Well, on a normal tank-and-spank, where you're just going from Eclipse to Eclipse, and not solar cleaving or wasting any downtime by moving, you shouldn't need to refresh DoTs whatsoever until you hit your next Eclipse, as you'll have very little time (3-4 seconds at max) where your DoTs aren't up.

    There's a lot of diagrams you should be able to find that demonstrate the normal pattern for seed nukage. Generally you run from one side to the middle, then all the way over to the otherside, DPSing along the way.
    Sunfyre | @FoGSunfyre

  6. #6
    As a side note : You can change the de part in armory link into en and it changes the language of the page. This works on any language WoW supports and any way around e.g Pyrate's link http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ctity/advanced


  7. #7
    You should dot rag while running from the seeds, once your shrooms are set up (i put mine ~5yds in front of the clump of seeds) barkskin->hurricane (before the seeds pop) -> blow shrooms while running away as the seeds start marching over your shrooms -> starfall ->typhoon. Right after you finish that just start wrathing. Make sure that you're in good position for minimal movement during world in flames and you should be able to get off plenty of wraths. Keep in mind that you should be using your starsurge instants. When going back to solar since your haste rating is rather low you could choose to not starsurge at all during it, as well as only refresh one of your dots just to get NG up. Also, at this point you can even ignore starsurge procs if you're at an energy where it would make you cast one more spell anyways to eclipse. As the time is counting down and you get a starsurge proc, save it for when you have to move as you can usually get another hardcast off. Remember also that once the seeds land you have plenty of time to plant your shrooms and start casting again if you're not in solar yet. Also try to be ~1 cast away from leaving solar when you start aoeing the seeds.

  8. #8
    Thanks for that hint, juvencus, and thanks for your helpfull answer, sepe. I will try to deal with the seeds the way you describe, that will probably make me fit in 1-2 more casts indeed. I have obtained 4t12 now, so things might look better. But let me ask you:

    When going back to solar since your haste rating is rather low you could choose to not starsurge at all during it, as well as only refresh one of your dots just to get NG up
    What would not using starsurge help? During eclipse it produces more energy per cast time than the other casts, so if I want to move energy fast, I should use it, right? Out of eclipse I'd just use the instants, though (due to 4t12 an euphoria), but in this case of course save them for movement.

  9. #9
    because of the way eclipsing works. ie: you're at 100 lunar energy, using starsurge means to get back to solar you are using 1 more gcd than if you didn't in order to get to solar, and if you're having trouble going to lunar then back to solar then every second counts.

  10. #10
    Something that really helps is a troll racial for pushing eclipses in p2, but even without it it still is quite easy to push to lunar and back in time, keep in mind you can pre-shroom near the stackup point when moving during world in flames, and then after running as a group you can finish off getting to sloar if you use the "group and run" strat. As far as the hurricane stuff goes, unless you are pushing eclipses while doing that, or have some great healers, or terribad aoers I wouldn't bother. Say you get 3 seed phases, you're dumping 40k mana, combine that with the use of innervate on healers for the 20k mana it amounts to over the fight, the solar cleave if you can't push eclipses in p2, and you can quickly find yourself becoming an oomkin. If you have 5/6 dpsers with some type of aoe, you shouldn't need the hurricane at all. What it comes down to, is people will slowly keep getting more and more aoe to the point where your hurricane becomes worth less than doing your instant aoe (shrooms / poof) and then nuking rag so you can start only getting 2 seeds.
    Last edited by Moogrum; 2011-10-07 at 04:55 PM.

  11. #11
    Why wouldn't you hurricane? You should never even come close to ooming anyways... Hurricane actually does a decent amt of damage here and there's no reason to not maximize your DPS as you don't even take that much damage from the seed explosion since barkskin is up every time. Not detonating your shrooms right away will also give an aff lock time to throw a coe out to make sure that your shrooms are benefitting from the spell dmg debuff.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Sepe View Post
    Why wouldn't you hurricane? You should never even come close to ooming anyways... Hurricane actually does a decent amt of damage here and there's no reason to not maximize your DPS as you don't even take that much damage from the seed explosion since barkskin is up every time. Not detonating your shrooms right away will also give an aff lock time to throw a coe out to make sure that your shrooms are benefitting from the spell dmg debuff.
    I don't know how to respond to you, considering every answer or info required was already in the post that you just responded to. Did you even read what I wrote? >_<

  13. #13
    Zookeeper Sunfyre's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    1,882
    Quote Originally Posted by Juvencus View Post
    As a side note : You can change the de part in armory link into en and it changes the language of the page. This works on any language WoW supports and any way around e.g Pyrate's link http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ctity/advanced
    Thanks. It makes a lot more sense in English!

    ---------- Post added 2011-10-07 at 07:00 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Sepe View Post
    Why wouldn't you hurricane? You should never even come close to ooming anyways... Hurricane actually does a decent amt of damage here and there's no reason to not maximize your DPS as you don't even take that much damage from the seed explosion since barkskin is up every time. Not detonating your shrooms right away will also give an aff lock time to throw a coe out to make sure that your shrooms are benefitting from the spell dmg debuff.
    I think what he's trying to say is if you have halfway decent AoE in your group comp, the seeds will die without Hurricane.
    Sunfyre | @FoGSunfyre

  14. #14
    I see that, but still no reason not to as well, as it is still maximizing your DPS. Also, the original post from Pyrates asked for what the procedure was for aoeing seeds the getting in position to DPS. Also, increasing aoe in whatever way possible makes it so the raid has to run away from the elementals that are still at like 1-5%ish hp which also increases raid DPS and lessens the healing needed to be done during world in flames. Killing them quicker that way also increases the time he has to single target the boss to drive from solar to lunar and then back to solar. Also, saying that you don't need hurricane if you have a halfway decent grp comp is just not helpful. If you're killing the elementals that fast then why not have some people just not aoe but rather have higher single target DPSers focus on rag? And I don't know why you're assuming that someone asking for help with that phase is in a guild that is annihilating seeds anyways... My responses are for his case, as this is a fix *MY* DPS thread - "my" being Pyrates, not the rest of the moonkin community

  15. #15
    If you have 5/6 dpsers with some type of aoe, you shouldn't need the hurricane at all
    Actually, by saying this Moogrum himself gave the answer why I'd need hurricane - I don't have "5/6 dpsers with some type of aoe", I'll have to do with 4, and as things are standing right now, I'll have to put out whatever I can to make things smoother. I see us pushing 2x seeds in the near future, though, we usually have to damage stop as to not start the transition when the seeds are still up.

    because of the way eclipsing works. ie: you're at 100 lunar energy, using starsurge means to get back to solar you are using 1 more gcd than if you didn't in order to get to solar, and if you're having trouble going to lunar then back to solar then every second counts.
    Ah ok, I got it. 1 starsurge alone does not allow to have 1 less starfire, so I wouldn't use it in this scenario. I guess I could watch for euphoria procs, because afaik they don't stack with 4t12 (giving 45 energy for starfire on proc, not 50 with 4t12), and in that case I could replace 1 starfire with 1 starsurge, winning around 0.7 seconds, right?

    Thanks everyone for helping, I've got a much better idea of how to deal with this phase now and I'll try to make it work this sunday Nobody yet has commented on lunar shower, I think it would be a good idea to spec into it so I can gain energy while running. Do you folks agree with that?

  16. #16
    Yes Pyrates if you're at a number like...65, starfire gives you 90, so if you want you can starsurge rather than starfire to save a bit of time. I don't really find lunar shower to be too helpful on this fight, however, while it could help you gain energy while moving it may hurt you in some other parts of the encounter. Also, euphoria was hotfixed at some point to also benefit from the 4t12 making it correctly give 50 rather than 45 with starfire (same with wrath euphoria)

    If you have any other questions feel free to post more!

  17. #17
    Deleted
    So hello! I posted this directly to Sunfyre but he wanted me to try my luck here! So I will.
    It's copied from my post to him so have that in mind. Iam really happy to get as much help as needed.


    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...elishuz/simple

    I know I should have some Wlogs but I haven't had the time to install them.
    I have decent gear and I know how to reforge etc.
    - My rotation is usually Starting of by using Volcanic Potion followed by starsurge, Lifeblood to Insect Swarm to Moonfire then I use Treants and Starfall. Following my rotation up with Starfire untill Wrath spam, renewing DoTs when they run out and trying to keep em up 100%. Also I always start my new DoTs with Insect swarm to get the extra haste on Moon/Sunfire.

    That is my normal rotation for a single target fight such as Hc Baelrock. I know my dps will be lowered by some but according to the spreadsheet I should be able to do 27k dps and currently iam doing 22.4k Dps. Please help if you can Sincerly Delishuz.

  18. #18
    Zookeeper Sunfyre's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    1,882
    Quote Originally Posted by Pyrates View Post



    Ah ok, I got it. 1 starsurge alone does not allow to have 1 less starfire, so I wouldn't use it in this scenario. I guess I could watch for euphoria procs, because afaik they don't stack with 4t12 (giving 45 energy for starfire on proc, not 50 with 4t12), and in that case I could replace 1 starfire with 1 starsurge, winning around 0.7 seconds, right?
    Euphoria and 4T12 stack. It does give 50 energy.
    Sunfyre | @FoGSunfyre

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Sepe View Post
    I see that, but still no reason not to as well, as it is still maximizing your DPS. Also, the original post from Pyrates asked for what the procedure was for aoeing seeds the getting in position to DPS. Also, increasing aoe in whatever way possible makes it so the raid has to run away from the elementals that are still at like 1-5%ish hp which also increases raid DPS and lessens the healing needed to be done during world in flames. Killing them quicker that way also increases the time he has to single target the boss to drive from solar to lunar and then back to solar. Also, saying that you don't need hurricane if you have a halfway decent grp comp is just not helpful. If you're killing the elementals that fast then why not have some people just not aoe but rather have higher single target DPSers focus on rag? And I don't know why you're assuming that someone asking for help with that phase is in a guild that is annihilating seeds anyways... My responses are for his case, as this is a fix *MY* DPS thread - "my" being Pyrates, not the rest of the moonkin community
    You contradict yourself and your logic has some giant holes in it. The resoning behind not hurricaning is this, hurricane is shitty, and with that time you are hurricaning, you could be getting off single target nukes to help you push eclipses between seeds, you brought up the idea that let single target dpsers just dps rag, that's exactly what I'm saying. thats why poof and shrooms is what you contribute, and let other aoers aoe while you become the single target dpser... boomkins have like a 450k dmg spike and then like 50k ticks for the next 10 seconds, whereas say a warlock might have continuing 100k hellfire ticks or w/e. You contribute your spikes, and then swap back to single target, giving you more single target time to push eclipses, while the people with sustained aoe dmg aoe them down. As I clearly mentioned though, only if you have enough aoe in your group to do so. Your idea of hurricaning to maximize your damage actualy hurts the overall raid dps.

    EDIT: And I don't know why you're assuming that someone asking for help with that phase is in a guild that doesn't have enough aoe when there was no mention of how much they have. Many groups have more than enough damage potential, they just need to see it and get used to it before you see it all.
    Last edited by Moogrum; 2011-10-08 at 12:33 AM.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Coreey View Post
    So hello! I posted this directly to Sunfyre but he wanted me to try my luck here! So I will.
    It's copied from my post to him so have that in mind. Iam really happy to get as much help as needed.


    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...elishuz/simple

    I know I should have some Wlogs but I haven't had the time to install them.
    I have decent gear and I know how to reforge etc.
    - My rotation is usually Starting of by using Volcanic Potion followed by starsurge, Lifeblood to Insect Swarm to Moonfire then I use Treants and Starfall. Following my rotation up with Starfire untill Wrath spam, renewing DoTs when they run out and trying to keep em up 100%. Also I always start my new DoTs with Insect swarm to get the extra haste on Moon/Sunfire.

    That is my normal rotation for a single target fight such as Hc Baelrock. I know my dps will be lowered by some but according to the spreadsheet I should be able to do 27k dps and currently iam doing 22.4k Dps. Please help if you can Sincerly Delishuz.
    Pre-pot, use trinkets/cooldowns, use a wrath/treants(Either order works), IS > MF, Starsurge in eclipse. Don't worry about refreshing DoTs.

    You could replace the PvP gear that you have on(Can't tell if you were PvPing or not) The MH can be swapped out with a 378 dagger/staff. Shoulders aren't enchanted. No second profession. Assuming you were PvPing as resto since your meta is wrong for boomkin. That's about the best I can give you for your playstyle/Armory.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •